(RNS) The Presbyterian Church (USA) voted Friday (June 20) to divest church funds from three American companies it cited for profiting from the oppression of Palestinians within Israel’s occupied territories.

The 310-303 vote of the church’s General Assembly in Detroit marks a victory for divestment supporters both within and without the 1.8 million-member PCUSA, now the largest American church to embrace divestment as a strategy to pressure Israel to return its illegally held lands.

At its 221st General Assembly meeting in Detroit, Mich., the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted June 20, 2014, to divest church funds from American companies that, divestment supports said, profit from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. RNS photo courtesy Danny Bolin via PC(USA)

The divestment resolution targets companies that divestment supporters say supply electronic and earth-moving equipment that help Israel violate Palestinian rights. Presbyterians in support of the resolution described it as a long overdue stand on behalf of Palestinians suffering under the occupation, which began in 1967 when Israel pushed back attacks from neighboring countries.

The issue has roiled the church for the last decade, and during a more than three-hour debate, many lamented the divisiveness and noted how many around the world — in the U.S., Israel and the Palestinian territories — would be watching.

“After a decade of corporate engagement with Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola Solutions, these companies have failed to modify their behavior and continue to profit from Israeli human rights abuses and non-peaceful pursuits,” said the Rev. Walt Davis of the Israel/Palestine Mission Network, a pro-divestment group within the church.

“This is a historic vote and the culmination of a long and deliberate internal process within the church,” he said.

But the vote also bodes ill for Presbyterian-Jewish relations, which are particularly fragile since the publication in January of “Zionism Unsettled,” a booklet produced by the church-chartered IPMN and sold on the PCUSA website, which argues the right of a Jewish nation to exist in the Holy Land is based on bad theology.

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, head of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest branch of Judaism in North America, spoke before the General Assembly Thursday, and warned that a divestment vote would be taken as a sign that the church has aligned itself with those in the “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions” movement who vilify Israel and even question its right to exist.

“It would be an attack on the Jewish community and religion,” especially in the wake of the publication of “Zionism Unsettled,” Jacobs said. “I don’t want the commissioners (assembly delegates) to think they can vote for divestment and be part of the global BDS movement and think that they can still stand with us.”

Jacobs offered to arrange a meeting in Jerusalem next week for Presbyterian leaders to talk with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu if they voted against divestment. Many who spoke against the measure said it was not worth the price of alienating the church’s Jewish friends and urged their fellow Presbyterians to accept Jacobs’ offer.

The authors of the divestment resolution seemed to take pains to distance the measure from the more strident critics of Israel inside and outside the church. The resolution affirmed the church’s support for a two-state solution and also stated that it does not mean an alignment with the overall strategy of the global BDS movement.

But Rabbi Noam Marans, director of interreligious relations at the American Jewish Committee, said in a statement after the vote: “This is an affront to all who are committed to a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The PCUSA decision is celebrated by those who believe they are one step closer to a Jew-free Middle East.”

Carol Hylkema, another IPMN member, said the vote puts the PCUSA on the right side of a moral question.

“Our denomination has been a leading voice in establishing the socially responsible investment movement that began in the early 1970s to end apartheid in South Africa,” she said. “This is a matter of stewardship and this decision brings our investments in line with our values.”

Leaders within the church’s divestment movement have struggled to get the General Assembly to back a divestment resolution for 10 years or more, missing the mark at the last assembly meeting, in 2012, by only two votes. The divestment movement, robust in many American universities and mainline Protestant churches, is particularly strong in the PCUSA. At their most recent national conference in 2012, the United Methodist Church rejected divestment as a tool to pressure Israel, but will likely revisit the issue at their next conference in 2016.

The vote Friday was proceeded by another momentous vote at the PCUSA on Thursday (June 19) when the General Assembly voted 61 to 39 percent to allow pastors to marry gay couples in places where gay marriage is legal. A change in the definition of marriage from man and woman to “two people” needs to be ratified by the church’s regional presbyteries.

Lauren Markoe

Lauren Markoe covered government and features as a daily newspaper reporter for 15 years before joining the Religion News Service staff as a national correspondent in 2011. She previously was Washington correspondent for The State (Columbia, S.C.)

samuel h

Americans have no right to say anything until they give texas back to mexico and most of the northern states back to Canada, oh and America back to the English. if the Canadians were palistinians they would bomb our women and children daily and then blame us for doing it, and we would use rockets, guns, and eventually nuclear bombs if necessary to stop them. the Canadians are Godly civil people, the Israelis are Godly civil people that have done everything in their power to appease an enemy that will not stop until every Jew is dead. Americans are the biggest hyppocrites I have ever met. support Hammas, give hammas texas if you are so worried about them.

Nick

This is absolutely shameful!! The Scriptures say to support our Jewish brothers in the Homeland, not to divest in their companies! I hope people out there know that not all Christians are like this and that this is a small and harmful minority! I did more research on this issue and wound up at the Facebook page for the Knesset Christian Alliance Caucus which condemns the decision of the Presbyterian Church. Check out their page if you want to follow in the path of god and support our Jewish brothers in the Homeland!!

Rocky Lore

fred

Israel ethnically cleanse 800000 Palestinians in 1948-67. Included in that number are 80000 Palestinian Christians. The church did the right thing. If every American took a look how the Israelis dehumanize the Palestinians in the West Bank I really doubt the support Israel gets now from the majority of the American people would be there.

Larry

So when are you going to get around to mentioning the several million Sephardic Jews ethnically cleansed from the Middle East and Africa from 1948 to present?

Of course you won’t.

You are just repeating the party lines of the Arab League and Iran. The sugar daddies for the Palestinians. Keeping them awash in high end weapons but not a dime for infrastructure of economic aid. 65 years of armed struggle got them squat. Even when they vacated its settlements in Gaza, it did nothing to stop the Iran funded attacks on Israel. The West Bank needs to play nice with Israel otherwise it becomes a landlocked mess. The Palestinians already ruined relations with Jordan and Lebanon. If Israel vacated and kept its borders tight, the Palestinians would be even more $crewed.

Not a single Palestinian leader is worth a bucket of horsecrap. If every person supporting the “poor suffering Palestinians” got a look at the people they are supporting, the corrupt gangsters beholden to foreign powers, they would change their tune awfully fast.

[…] Schlussel reports: On Friday, the dying Presbyterian Church of the United States of America (PCUSA) voted to boycott Israel by withdrawing its investments in a few companies that do business with Israel (but won’t […]